The St. Mary’s County Alcohol Beverage Board has suspended the license of Friendly’s Sports Bar in Clements for 30 days and fined the owners $500. The suspension and fine stem from an incident at the bar at closing on November 12 of last year that police described as a riot. But police officers testified they have to be called to the bar virtually every week for a disturbance.
The board on Thursday found the licensees guilty of two violations: consumers remaining on the premises including the parking lot after closing and a number of acts that violated the peace and safety of the community. The licensees, through their spokesman Tony Hill, admitted the first violation but not the second.
In a statement of facts, board attorney Joann Wood said a half-dozen officers were summoned to the bar on November 12 and came upon a number of fights occurring in the parking lot. Pepper spray had to be used and it took officers about a half hour to disperse the crowd. The board’s regulations require bars to be emptied and parking lots cleared by 2 a.m. except for 2:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.
One of the parts of the peace and safety violation alleged that one of the licensees, Haskell Campbell, Jr. failed to cooperate with police regarding an assault on him during the melee. Police observed blood on Campbell’s shirt. He testified at the hearing he had been hit by a swinging door, a point that was contradicted by a police officer who said Campbell said he had been hit by a bottle.
Hill testified that most of the problems at the bar occur when promoters take it over for an event. The board’s Alcohol Enforcement Coordinator DFC James Stone testified that promoters publicize events for 18 years olds to party even though the legal age to drink is 21. Hill denied that anyone under 21 is allowed in the bar. But, Corporal Deborah Milam said she had stopped a car full of underage girls from D.C. who said they had been at the bar the week before and enjoyed observing the police pepper spray patrons. It was where the action was, they told Milam.
Hill, Campbell and Janice Head became licensees of the bar in 2009. The security plan agreed to by them and approved by the board called for the bar to install security cameras and lights in the parking lot. Since then only two spotlights were installed on the roof and the deputies testified that that parking lot is very dark. Only since the November incident have the cameras become functioning, according to Hill.
Stone said he met with the licensees last July about the number of incidents at the bar and was assured things would change. He said that didn’t happen. Instead, Stone said police have had to use “too many resources” to deal with incidents at the bar to the detriment of the safety of the rest of the county.
Stone also said bar patrons were parking across Budd’s Creek Road in a private lot and that the street crossing was a safety issue. He said film from the November 12 incident showed patrons standing in the middle of the road.
Hill said that for the special promoter events there are as many as 10 security personnel on site, including fou
<!–
–>
